Virginia Woolf once wrote, ‘I walk making up phrases, sit contriving scenes; am, in short, in the thick of the greatest rapture known to me.’

She was, of course, describing one necessity in being a writer – that of the overactive imagination.

Every writer needs the power of his or her imagination. Without it you will not experience that “rapture”, let alone be able to put pen to paper in any meaningful way. Often, that power is compulsive – you have to give into it.

Are you doing what you love to do in life? Are you doing what makes your heart sing and causes time to stand still because you’re caught up in your bliss? Do you wake up every day feeling blessed that you are living your dream?

Or have you, like Jude in My Lover’s Keeper pushed your dream, your bliss, aside and got a “proper job”?

“I had extravagant, secret dreams of writing novels about far-flung places. In the meantime, I polished my new office shoes and ironed my white blouses.”

You’ve probably at some point, like most people who harbour creative pursuits and ambitions, been told that your dream was impractical, pie-in-the-sky and doomed to failure. Fear is drummed into you: How can you pay the bills from painting pictures or writing stories? Only very lucky or insanely talented people make it big. The rest – the triers and the pitiable dreamers, well, they wind up sitting in a crappy apartment somewhere, broke and in denial. Failures with a capital, neon-lit “F”.

If you listen long and hard enough the opinions of other people, especially those who’ve given up on their own dreams or never had them in the first place, can signal the kiss of death to pursuing what you love.

It’s okay to admit it. It doesn’t make you a bad person if you don’t like how close your partner is to their ex.

It makes you normal. Very normal.

Of course you’re uncomfortable about how close they are. Of course you feel insecure. They used to be what you and your partner are now. A couple. In love with each other. Intimate on all levels.

Now, before I go any further, it’s important to state that some people do get on far better as platonic friends than romantic partners and would never ever want to resume their past relationship. And if there are kids involved, friendship is surely a good thing, right? After all, the kids have suffered enough pain due to the separation; if their parents are on good terms and behaving in a mature way it makes life easier for them.

What I’m talking about is the sort of closeness between ex-partners that threatens their current relationships. Closeness that takes focus and energy away from the current relationship, so it’s a major distraction. Closeness that erodes the trust, respect and security in the current relationship.

The saying goes that money makes the world go round, but that’s not true.

It’s our relationships.

How we relate to other people and how they relate to us keeps our world spinning round. When things go well, all’s right with our world. When things go badly, it can feel as though our world has ended.

And that’s why your relationships will always be the most important thing in your life, and why it serves you well to have the best possible relationship with others, and yourself, and improve the connection you have with the less-than-positive people in your life.

We probably all have negative people in our lives – those who criticize us, complain about us, belittle us and say or do cruel things. They can be the closest to us, people we have known all our lives. That makes their negativity harder to escape and harder to endure.

Do you believe in serendipity? You know, fortunate accidents, where something unexpected happens that changes your life. An event you never saw coming but end up feeling very glad it did. You can call it coincidence or a fluke, if you like – it’s the same thing.

Serendipity often plays a big part in our relationships. We meet new people all the time, but what makes one person stay in our lives while another is transient, simply passing through?

Is it simply serendipity (right place, right time) or are we, on a deeper level, attracting that person or event to us so it’s more like destiny, fate, something that was “meant to be”? It’s hard to say, although you’re probably familiar with the law of attraction and the part it can play in all aspects of our lives, especially our relationships.

Fluke or Fate? It doesn’t matter. It’s what you do with it that counts